Thursday, June 30, 2011

When i travel out of Boston i always try and go out there the night before and hang out with my friends. My friends Jake and Lino moved there in the past year and i dont get to see them very often. They usually stay up late riding and talking shit about everything we can think of (all in good fun). My flight to michigan was at 7:00PM on Tuesday. i took a train into boston at 11:00PM monday night. when i got there, there was a shit load of people hanging out "riding". i use the term riding loosely because after hours of hanging out we all took about 10 runs on a "foot tall ledge".

There was so many people there! probably about 30 kids on bicycles. i saw one kid bunny hop over a crack head lady and come inches from sprocket chunking her face. After 12 the crowd started to scatter and by the end it was just jake, lino, and i. we sat around for a few hours just talking, and by 2AM, it was time for the 2 of them to leave. i decided to stay cruising by myself. If you have ever been to boston after dark, you know how fun it is to watch the weird shit people are doing.

I cruised around all night by myself. i ended up on the water front watching the sun come up over the harbor.

after the sun was up the city came to life. people running around like ants trying to get to work. people everywhere. i found a soft patch of grass and layed down to watch the madness. i fell asleep and woke up about 5 hours later.

doing stuff like this makes me think about how different i am from alot of people. here i am, pedaling around a city in the middle of the night, alone, just to watch how people act during those hours. all those people that ran past me in the morning, had no idea i was sitting in the grass just to watch them. or that i hadnt slept the whole night before and it wasnt because i was homeless or a crack head. or what about the people that ran by when i was asleep in the grass? what were they thinking? why is that guy sleeping there at 6AM? with his legs through the frame of his bicycle so no one could steal it.

when i woke up, i jumped on the subway and went to 90EAST. i love that place. people are always there just hanging out. its perfect. at one point there was 10 guys in there having a crazy conversation about bull shit. stuff that didnt even matter. it was like a company meeting of the minds. talking about bmx? what the hell were we thinking? w/e i got to my plane perfectly on schedule and then they gave me a cold orange juice on the plane, with this napkin.

thats some solid advertising. i feel like its an advertisement for people to have a good time, i wonder if it made any sales?

Golf is awesome. If you have never played it, you wouldnt know how fun it is. Today i went golfing with my moms husband and my grand father. I guess if your just looking to have a good time, you just have to have an open mind and anything is fun. Give golf a try.. Its just another way to enjoy your summer.
think about it.. you get to cruise around on a golf cart on smooth perfect grassy hills. that in itself is a good time.

just remember.. if you take anything too serious, you take the fun out of it. the key to a good time is to have a good time . FUCK STRESS.

i dont get to see my mom very much, so i was stoked to rip a scary old wooden roller coaster with her. i took this picture of her and i at the top of the up hill.

i took this picture going over the up hill.

and then i took this one of my mom going down one of the hills

they had a kick ass water park too. everyone that knows me knows that im not one to spend money to have fun. i can find plenty of fun for free and it doesent take much to keep me entertained, but i havent been to an amusement/water park in years and it was awesome to be with my family.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

we finally make it to the road after 2 days of hiking. i could have kissed that scorching hot black top. we ran for the other side of the road and threw the thumbs out. in 5 minutes we have a ride..the license plate says "RAGOO"

Its a guy in his late 20's. he said he was heading to concord nh and we told him we just needed to get around to the south side of the mountain to grab our truck. he told us he knew a little short cut that cut off about 15 minutes. it was a dirt road. Seemed kinda weird but there wasnt much we could do . he starts telling us how he takes that road to work everyday and its so fun to drive on . he acctually said "My back end likes to get out a little on this road but dont worry about it". Craig and i look at each other and make sure we had our seatbelts good and tight. its funny because when we finally did get in the gnarly car wreck...no one lost their cool at all. We all knew, from the first turn, that we were going to be crashing into the woods at some point along this dirt road. after he totaled his piece of shit car into the woods, he said "my parole officer is gonna be pissed". i started rushing to get outta the car and get away from the guy. heres the full video from the crash. it has some footage of before we crashed and then some stuff after.

he told us he was from Lawrence Mass. The best part about the crash was no one got hurt. if there was a car coming around one of those corners he flew around..it would have been a mess. i think he was on crack or something. AND, we still had to keep hitch hiking to get back to the truck.

someone scooped us up and let us ride in their truck. a nice relaxing 20 minutes after our first 20 minutes off the mountain.

clint gave craig and i a ride to the train. we were going to hitch home but after our morning we decided the train was a better option.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Mt Adams blows! the trek to the top was the worst hike of all time. after hiking for 20 hours straight, the last thing i wanted to do was rock climb for miles. we layed down in the last patch of grass we could see. just to soak up the view of the lowering sun.

miles of this garbage

getting to the top of mt adams was more of an accomplishment than getting to washington. the hike was torture and the view from the top was surreal. Mt. washington is always a little crowded with people and i feel, the view is mediocre compared to Adams. this peak was the only one we didnt take a group picture on. individual pics of each of us on this peak seemed fitting.

real stoked on this picture of Craig. After flying all the way from florida to do this hike..I'm sure this is exactly what he was hoping for from this trip. Mt Washington is the peak in the background on the right. its hard to believe that was our half way mark.

We hiked to the bottom of Mt Adams and enjoyed the view of the sun setting.

From there we walked for 30 minutes until we got to the tree line. by the time we made it to the trees it was dark. we all strapped head lamps on and headed into the woods to try and find a place to sleep. We were all in agony. Clint and I were creeping through the trail while craig started slowing down a bunch. We decided to do ahead of craig and try to find a spot to sleep and try to cook some food before he got there. Unfortunately, an hour later and we couldnt find anywhere to sleep. the trail was so steep and rocky. The rule is, you have to camp 200 feet off of any trail and 200 feet from any water. We gave up and just set up camp in the middle of the trail.

in the morning we woke up to people stepping over us trying to get up the trail. we could all barely walk and just wanted to get to the road and get a ride back to the car. we walked for an hour and found a little stream to hang out and cook some breakfast.

another hour and we got to a nice river.

the water was ice cold. but we couldnt walk by it without jumping in it. we found a nice little natural rock water slide to go down. the water was probably 30 degrees

the rest of the trail was nice.. a mellower grade and less rocks and more pine needles. just what my body needed

we were so stoked to make it to the road! but i guess thats when our real adventure started...

Mt. Washington was our half way mark. its the highest peak in the range and after that we were hoping the rest would be a walk in the park. The trail got harder at the bottom of Washington. Alot more rocks and we slowed down the pace just a bit.

being on the peak felt awesome. such a nice accomplishment. the perfect weather and i made some coffee.

hiking from providence rhode island to the highest peak in the north east...stoked!

after washington we had our work cut out for us.. we had about 7 hours left of day light and 9 hours of hiking left before we would get below the tree line to camp. 3 more peaks. this is what we were up against . heading to the far peak. and then from there we still had 3-4 hours down to the road.

we followed the tracks for the cog railway for a little bit.. i wish we could have walked on them all the way to the bottom, but 100 feet was a nice treat.

the valley that was to the right of us the whole time, was awesome. we saw one person the whole time on the north side of washington.

Mt. Clay was the first peak. it was small and we were motivated, so it was a breeze.

from there we went to mt jefferson. most of the peaks have a trail that goes around them but we made sure to crest the tops of all of them.

Jefferson! the energy was dwindling .

Jackson to Adams . this is a picture of clint with Mt washington in the back ground. still a ways to go and we didnt realize what was up ahead of us.

From Jefferson to Adams was the worst stretch of the entire hike. i dont think i will ever put myself through that again